“A “Canadian Bethesda”: Reading Banff as a Health Resort, 1883-1902

Authors

  • Caroline Lieffers

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21971/P70883

Abstract

When two railway workers discovered Banff’s hot springs in 1885, an isolated mountain siding quickly became the object of national and international interest. This paper highlights a hitherto neglected factor in the creation of Canada’s first national park: the rich nineteenth-century health theories and philosophies, particularly medical geography, that invested the springs and the surrounding environment with salutary properties and drove Banff’s early development as a health and pleasure resort. Before the conservation movement took a firm hold of the national park mandate, the region’s physical, psychological, and moral health benefits were the focus. The curative mineral springs, pure air, and ennobling scenery intrigued a financially struggling government, a powerful railway company, and work-weary urbanites alike, and the vision of a luxury hotel and bathing resort soon expanded to a vast and healthful adventure playground. Banff was at once a region to be civilized and developed into a modern resort, and a natural antidote to the evils of modern life. Canada’s national park system originated in the popular and profitable association between health and the natural environment; medical and environmental histories are inextricably linked in the study of Banff’s first two decades.

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Author Biography

Caroline Lieffers

Caroline Lieffers completed her MA in History at the University of Alberta in 2010. Her research interests include the histories of health, medicine, and domestic life in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain and North America. Her work can be found in the Journal of Social History and Women's History Review, among other venues. She may be contacted at clieffers@gmail.com.

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Published

2013-01-29

How to Cite

Lieffers, C. (2013). “A “Canadian Bethesda”: Reading Banff as a Health Resort, 1883-1902. Past Imperfect, 17. https://doi.org/10.21971/P70883

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Articles